Cheese and Victory
by Spirit Dog
Summary: Alistair introduces Reshalya to cheese in a form. He also helps her come to terms with her new life, and achieve a victory over her own doubts and her own fears and pain. Set in Ostergar.


The color drained out of her cheeks, and she reached out and steadied herself against a pillar just as the dizzy spell began. "Sorry," Reshalya said, looking at her companion sheepishly, "I guess forgetting to eat on top of being a bit ill isn't really a good idea."

Alistair gave her a worried look as he suddenly felt something, but he could not be sure of it. He reached out and helped her sit down on the cool stone stairs, "Food I can at least help with," he smiled, trying to hide his concern, "wait here... and well, what do you like to eat?"

She looked up at the tall man with a mild expression of surprise at his concern, "Well I really like fruit, especially oranges and roast apples, but I haven't really eaten much since well, I can explain when I feel a little less dizzy."

"Right," he said, "I'll see what I can find if you'll be okay for a few minutes."

Reshalya chuckled halfheartedly, "Trust me, I'm not moving for a few minutes."

Alistair hurried off towards the various food sellers that inevitably followed any encampment of this size. After finding what he was looking for, he came back to where the elven woman was sitting with two golden brown pastries in his hands. He handed her one of them and then sat down next to her, "Careful, its warm. Yours is apples, or so I was told."

"Thanks," she took a big bite out of it, her eyes widening, "that's really good! I've never had anything like this before."

He smiled, "Never?"

"Seen many bakeries in the middle of the forest?" She asked between large bites of her turnover.

"Point taken. You want to tell me what's wrong?"

Reshalya nodded, "It's so strange here, nobody knows anyone, and everyone calls me 'Hey you, elf!' and then treats me like I'm their personal slave. I also miss my clan, a lot," she looked down at her feet and sniffled.

Alistair listened aghast as she described to him in detail the events leading up to and around her recruitment. His food forgotten in his hands, he watched her as she, every so often sniffled and her eyes glossed over whenever she mentioned Tamlen's name.

"Maker... I wish I knew what to say. I'm so sorry," Alistair gave her a look of deep concern. He wondered to himself how it was even possible for her to be relatively well after being tainted for so long, "You don't still feel sick though?"

"No," she shook her head, "I can still feel it in me, but its more the whole not eating, and being yelled at by half the camp that was making me feel ill. Let me talk to Duncan myself about it, though, please."

She chuckled half heartedly, "I kind of have a bad habit of forgetting to eat when I get preoccupied, so I know the difference."

Alistair nodded, "Well, I can't really help with that more then I already am, but maybe I can help at least with the rude people around here. Have you tried making a joke about it and making fun of them instead of well, threatening them?"

She smiled sheepishly, "Usually I'm good at that, but not so much lately. I could tell you stories…"

Alistair raised an eyebrow, "Oh? Like what?"

"Well, I was in a bit of a sour mood after everything that happened, and Haren Paival asked me to help him tell the story of where the Dalish come from to some of the children even though I was in no mood. So I started off by saying 'When a mommy elf and a daddy elf love each other very much…'"

"How did he react?"

"He sighed a lot, but Fenarel was sitting nearby and he looked like he was trying hard not to laugh, and well, I felt a lot better," she looked off wistfully into the distance as she spoke.

Alistair laughed, and thought to himself that he needed to get her to cheer up somehow, "You are a horrible woman. I like it!" He smiled as an idea hit him, "You didn't happen to like to climb trees as a child, did you?"

She smiled sheepishly, "As a child? I still love to do it!"

He looked her over, she was wearing light weight Dalish hunting leathers that showed a lot more skin then he would have though prudent, had vivid slanted green eyes, and short dark brown hair held back in three tails as well as long, pointed, ears. Cute, he thought, but he kept on reminding himself not to get too attached in case she did not… no, not something he wanted to think about. Alistair broke out of his train of thought and forced a smile, "Can I ask you something?"

"You can ask me anything," she had a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, "as long as I can ask you something in return!"

"Umm… sure… Aren't you cold?"

Reshalya laughed heartily, "No I'm not. Spent my entire life outdoors, so I'm used to living with nature, not fighting against it, and well, Duncan asked me the exact same thing. I asked him in return if fighting darkspawn in white was impractical. Thankfully he just laughed", she leaned a bit forward and gave the half eaten treat in his hands a poke, "Now my question. What in the name of the Gods are you eating?"

Alistair gave her an incredulous look, "It's a cheese strudel. It's sweet and really tasty."

"Cheese… strudel… Cheese can be sweet?" Reshalya looked utterly confused.

"You've never? I mean you've never had anything sweet with cheese?"

"I think I've had cheese once, but it was a long time ago."

Alistair smiled at her, handing her the strudel, "You want to try a bite?"

Reshalya took it out of his hands, and sniffed it before taking a small bite out of it. She chewed it slowly with her eyes closed, as if contemplating the flavor. Her eyes flew open, wide with surprise, "That is really good!"

Handing the pastry back to Alistair, she looked a lot more relaxed, and a lot less pale then when she first sat down. Alistair finished off his strudel in two bites before pulling a small wrapped yellow-orange lump from his pack. He cut off a small slice and handed it to her, "Try this. It's called cheddar cheese."

Reshalya popped it into her mouth and ate it, smiling, "I think I've been missing something rather good."

Alistair laughed and put an arm around her, quickly withdrawing it when he realized what he was doing. He bit his lip thinking to himself, _don't get too attached, you don't know if she'll survive._

Reshlaya felt a bit disappointed when he withdrew his arm, thinking to herself, _he's a shemlen, but it already feels like we've been friends for ever. How is this even possible?_

He stood up and extended a hand towards her, "Come on, we should get back to Duncan."

Taking his hand, she let herself be pulled up, "Thank you lethallin…" She blushed and looked a little bit sheepish.

"Huh?"

"Sorry, its umm… elvish, I probably shouldn't have, but well… habit," She looked down at her feet.

Alistair chuckled, "No worries, but umm… what does it mean?"

"My friend. And well, thank you Alistair for everything."

Together they walked back to the fire where Duncan and Daveth were standing. Reshalya nodded towards Daveth and Duncan before the latter addressed her, "You found Alistair, did you? Good. I'll assume you're ready to begin preparations assuming you finished riling up mages Alistair."

Reshalya bit her lip and stifled a giggle. The way Alistair was being gently admonished sounded pleasantly familiar. She listened to him try to explain and apologize before dashing off to find the last recruit. Reshalya realized with no small amount of embarrassment that she was watching Alistair's hind quarters as he went to find the last recruit. She wondered to herself if she was not going slightly insane from the taint.

Alistair introduced the other recruit, a tall, nervous man with a receding hairline as Ser Jory, a knight from Redcliff. She decided to take Alistair's advice to heart and said, "And I'm the new girl! Name's Reshalya but everyone around here seems to think it's 'hey you elf'."

She received nervous laughs from the other two recruits, a bemused look from Duncan, and a big grin from Alistair. They received their instructions, and the group of recruits plus Alistair started across camp towards the Wilds. The closer they got, the more nervous Ser Jory, and to some degree, Daveth looked. Jory was the first to speak, "I hear there are barbarians in the Wilds."

Daveth looked at him, "And Witches."

Reshalya looked from one man to the other, then said, "and Dalish elves too. Oooh scary!", she grinned from pointed ear to pointed ear as she spoke.

Daveth looked worried while Jory turned white as a sheet, "Is true what they say about the Dalish?"

Alistair gave Reshalya a long look before bursting out into laughter, "Should you tell them or should I?"

"All right you two, what's the big joke?" demanded Daveth with a small amount of annoyance.

Reshalya's eyes twinkled with mischief, "I am Dalish. I sort of thought the tattoo gives it away. That and no clan would be anywhere near this amount of darkspawn."

Later that night, she awoke after drinking the darkspawn blood of the Joining to find warm, strong hands lifting her up. She heard their voices, not really listening, and took the necklace handed to her, placing it on over the one that belonged to her father. Reshalya responded to the questions without really registering what she was being told and without thinking until she was asked by Duncan to accompany him to a meeting with the king. Nodding to him, Reshayla asked for a few minutes since she still felt in shock.

She sat down on the cool stone steps trying to regain her composure as images from the Joining and from her dreams flashed through her mind. A warm familiar voice broke her train of thought, "I'm glad you survived," he pulled her in and gave her a quick tight hug and placed a warm, golden brown rectangle in her hands, "I… figured you might be hungry."

"Yeah," she took a bite of the pastry, "cheese strudel?"'

Alistair sat next to her as she ate, "If the King wants to see you and Duncan, you probably shouldn't keep him waiting. He might get mad, start crying, you'll feel bad and well it won't be pretty."

Reshalya finished off the last bites of her strudel, brushed the crumbs off of her leather skirt, then stood up using his shoulder as leverage, "I see you have close to the same opinion on him I do. That was really tasty. Thank you, and you're right. I should get going. Until later!"

He watched her, at a loss for words. She flashed him a quick smile, before turning, head held high and walking proudly to the war council.


End file.
